Samir Mehran
Samir Mehran was a conspirator working with the Kamistan splinter cell leader Farhad Hassan during Day 8. In the events of Day 8, he led most of the field operations of the Kamistani splinter cell in America. With a businessman supporting him and his own crew of Revolutionary Guard recruits, he discarded Farhad's original scheme for the rods and created a radiological bomb with which to threaten New York City. He was shot by Jack Bauer mere moments after he had slit President Omar Hassan's throat on a video feed to the Internet. Though he survived the gunshot wounds, he was killed approximately 45 minutes later by cardiac arrest induced at Hassan's murder scene by Pavel Tokarev, who was disguised as an EMT. Before Day 8 Samir was a member of the Revolutionary Guard. During an operation in the Abul province, he met Omar Hassan who was a general at the time. Samir was among a group of servicemen who served Omar in a risky campaign to secure the perimeter of Abul. After he left, the IRK placed him within the United States as a covert agent. Day 8 On the night of Day 8 Samir was at a secret rendezvous near Flushing Meadows Park, waiting for the nuclear rods to be delivered by Sergei Bazhaev's men. When he and Farhad spoke on the phone, Samir warned him that more of their co-conspirators in Kamistan were being arrested. Samir spoke for himself as well as General Wasim when he expressed his anxiety: if the military was completely purged of their supporters, the fuel rods would be useless to them. Farhad angrily asserted his dominance and demanded to know why Wasim didn't call him directly. As they finished the call, Farhad ordered him to be prepared for the eventual arrival of the cargo. After Samir met with Farhad, they found a height from which to observe Josef Bazhaev after he stopped with the fuel rods. Samir used a sniper rifle to observe Josef; as his target prepared to leave and accept an immunity deal with the government, Samir opened fire and killed Josef. After bringing the rods back to their secure spot, Samir informed Farhad that the area was owned by a "businessman" who supports their cause. He introduced Farhad to a new crew of henchmen and then revealed that it would be impossible to bring the rods back to Kamistan. The new plan would be to strike America. He spent some time convincing Farhad that America was the real enemy, and that the US must be attacked to prevent Omar Hassan from becoming a puppet politician and Kamistan from becoming another corrupt Middle Eastern nation. Farhad seemed shocked but finally agreed to help them, even volunteering to enlist some support. As Ali walked Farhad to a phone, the two fought and Farhad escaped. Samir then sent Ali and many of the men to kill him and prepared to evacuate the nuclear materials. At a diner with the rods in a truck outside, Samir and some of the others waited until Ali returned after shooting Farhad. There, they watched a news report which stated that Farhad had been rescued from fatal gunshot wounds. The report was a lie fabricated by CTU, and the terrorists were deceived. Ali offered to go to the hospital and make the kill for certain, but Samir instead chose Marcos Al-Zacar to complete the task because Marcos was less conspicuous as an assassin and had a mother named Elaine Al-Zacar. Samir went out to the truck and informed Marcos of his mission, and prepared him with a high-explosive suicide vest with a detonator. Al-Zacar then found out eventually that they had been set up, and that Farhad was already dead, and tried to blow himself up, but his vest was disarmed by CTU in time and Jack Bauer and the CTU team surrounded him. He then had no choice but to escape from Jack Bauer and barricade himself inside a chamber, where Samir told him to re-arm and detonate the vest manually. Samir and his men were then able to gain access to the surveillance around the chamber. After a while, Jack was able to get Marcos to open the vest, using Marco's mother as leverage, so Samir armed the bomb again, causing it to finally detonate, killing Marcos, but not before he confessed to Jack Bauer a crucial lead, Tarin Faroush. hostage. ("Day 8: 3:00am-4:00am")]] Discovering that Kayla Hassan had already found out about Tarin through her mother, Samir had Tarin kidnap Kayla and lead her to an abandoned bank, and used Kayla as leverage to get File 33, which contained confidential information from the DOD about the nuclear weapons of the US. However, as they had long expected, the file was not sent, so Tarin had one last play to fake an escape, letting Kayla drive out of the scene alive and contact CTU, hiding an electromagnetic pulse bomb in the car she drove. Shortly after Kayla arrived at CTU, the bomb detonated, successfully bringing CTU down and furthering Samir's plan to detonate the rods in Manhattan. Around 4:10am, Samir and his men arrived at a dock along the East River and loaded the rods onto a Zodiac. One of his men informed him of a vehicle approaching. He ordered his team to engage. Tarin identified Jack Bauer as an ex-CTU agent and how it was unlikely they'd be able to take him out easily. Having his men keep them pinned down, Samir and Tarin boarded the Zodiac, bound for Manhattan. ")]] As they arrived, he called Dana Walsh at CTU to ensure everything was going according to plan before getting into a taxi and driving off. He then brought the rods to Ahman in Manhattan to be armed to detonate. After the dirty bomb was armed he called President Taylor and demanded she deliver President Hassan to him or he would detonate the rods, effectivley holding New York city hostage. President Taylor refused to give in to his demands causing her Chief of Staff Rob Weiss and General David Brucker to have a mercenary group attempt to abduct and deliver Hassan to Samir. General Brucker's plan nearly failed when Jack Bauer's group killed all of the mercenaries except for the wounded Adrion Bishop. President Hassan, however, did not want to be the cause of the deaths of innocent people, so he knocked Jack out and turned himself over to Bishop. Bishop delivered Hassan to Tarin Faroush, and the bomb was found and disarmed. CTU tracked Tarin's movements via satellite and set up an ambush to rescue Hassan, but Dana Walsh alerted Tarin. Tarin discreetly transferred Hassan to a different car, then killed himself to avoid capture. Hassan was brought to Samir's hideout inside an apartment building, where Samir revealed he had once fought with Hassan, back when Hassan was a general. Samir said he was a great leader then, but was now weak and selling his country out with the proposed peace agreement. Hassan pleaded with Samir to have faith in him again and to understand that the peace agreement was best for Kamistan. Angered by this, Samir tortured Hassan to get him to confess his "sins" in an Internet broadcast. Hassan refused even after being shocked repeatedly with a stun gun and threatened with dismemberment. Samir had Ahman start the Internet feed, deciding to read off Hassan's crimes himself and execute him as planned. ")]] Dana Walsh was soon exposed as the traitor in CTU and taken into custody. She asked to speak to Jack Bauer to make a deal: immunity and "compensation" in exchange for Hassan's location. After getting the information from Dana, Jack and Cole led a team to Samir's hideout just as Samir was ending his rant and preparing to execute President Hassan. Jack and Renee Walker found Samir's apartment by using audio surveillance, and quietly made their way in. Jack found a hole in the closet wall, entered the room Samir was using for the broadcast, and gunned down Samir's men. Samir opened fire on Jack with a machine pistol, but Jack incapacitated him with two shots to the shoulder. Jack then realized the broadcast was still playing and when he turned around, he was faced with the dead body of President Hassan, whose throat was slashed. The broadcast feed was not live; Samir had already executed President Hassan. As the unconscious Samir was being carried out on a stretcher, the Russian assassin Pavel, disguised as an EMT, injected a lethal fluid into Samir. About 40 minutes later, he went into cardiac arrest and died at CTU Medical before he could reveal any information. Background information and notes * Samir appeared in 10 episodes: see his notable recurring antagonist distinctions. * One of Samir's major supporters was apparently unrevealed. Samir disclosed to Farhad at about 12:19am that a familiar businessman who supported their cause was the owner of the boat warehouse in Forest Hills. The businessman was not mentioned again. It seems likely that this character was forgotten or discarded by the writers. This shadowy person was effectively replaced by the diplomat Mikhail Novakovich as the "man behind Samir", although Samir never knew the identities of his supporters in the Russian government. * Samir is perhaps the only mastermind on 24 who succeeded in achieving exactly what he wanted; as a stark opponent of I.R.K.'s peace treaty with the U.S. and the I.R.K.'s nuclear disarmament, his two objectives during Day 8 were to kill Omar Hassan and ensure that the peace treaty would not be signed. Even though he failed to witness his latter desire, both of them came to fruition; he secured Hassan's death, and due to the exposure of the complicit Russians that only arose after Hassan died, the treaty was never passed, and the I.R.K.'s nuclear power status was likely secured. * Samir's death is similar to that of Iké Dubaku in Season 7. They were both injected with a deadly substance by men pretending to be doctors in order to prevent them from revealing information about their co-conspirators. Live appearances See also Category:Characters Category:Day 8 characters Category:Day 8 antagonists Category:Military personnel Category:Kamistan splinter cell Category:Masterminds Category:Deceased characters